deercountry | fall for me from reality [open]

Entry tags:

fall for me from reality [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you
What: November catch-all!
When: Throughout November
Where: The Entertainment Feed; Anna's usual club; other locations TBD

Content Warnings: Manipulation, blood + oil, lacerations, restraints

a. hold shut the wounds of the past [for murderbot]

An android walks into the Entertainment Feed. Stop me if you've heard this one before. She's wrapped in a heavier coat than usual, black fur around the collar, and she's wearing a new-looking pair of black jeans with no holes in it except for the ones that the guy who made them put in there for her feet and torso. Her boots are the ones she used to sail with, and her jeans are tucked into them. And, because she's committed to her own brand, she's got a white t-shirt with a faded picture of yet another robot on it.

"Anna Amarande," she says to one of the drones, identifying herself like she'd been asked. "Fantasy Twitter user rin should be expecting me? We have some things to discuss."

b. to the rhythm of eternity [open]

Anna usually limits her performances at the bar she's taken to calling her home in Cellar Door to three nights a week, but lately, she's felt a little more inspired than usual. She's chalking that one up to the Tower's influence, and she'd feel a little ungrateful if she didn't bump it up to five nights a week for at least a little while. She's playing most of the songs in her repertoire over a given week, her voice and her bass on full display with any other instruments covered by backing tracks from the glowing projected screen of her Omni.

Of course, maybe you didn't walk into this bar to listen to Anna play music. Maybe you're here for a conversation—maybe something important, maybe just catching up with old friends. If that's the case, she's glad to wave you over to the booth that she's stolen for herself in the back, dimly lit but private. She's got a bottle of beer in her hand as she does it, and she tilts it towards the bartender as if to say "one more for my friend".

"Hey, glad you could make it. C'mon, let's take a load off for a bit. What's been up with you?"

c. there are burning cathedrals [for makima]

This is going to be interesting, she thinks. She'd met Makima online in a curious conversation about godliness, and she wonders very much whether it's going to play out the same way in person. Right now, she's dressed as normal; it's a little bit colder this morning, so she has her thick, fur-collared coat over those new black jeans and Hatsune Miku tee, and she's looking around the coffee shop for anyone who looks even remotely like a Makima.

"Hey," says the woman with more souls than eyes once she's pretty sure she's got the right person. "Sorry, usually the places I hang are a little... grungier than this. Hope I didn't keep you waiting long. You're Makima?"

d. turning the skies into glass [friend of mine]

"All right," Anna says, in the heavier coat she's been wearing this whole time. She shrugs her shoulders up to wrap the collar around her neck properly, and she adjusts the strap over her chest that secures her katana to her back. "We're here to find something to help the Tower. Thanks for coming along." She turns her head towards her companion and smiles appreciatively. "I'm not in the business of walking into danger alone anymore. So—"

She reaches into her pocket and slips the crescent necklace she'd gotten from the Reckoning over her head, around her neck. "This can make sure that at least someone already knows where we are, in case there's an emergency, but how are you with tracking? I don't think a lot of us have been out this deep in the woods before." She looks back out ahead of them; the trees might be starting to die off, but that doesn't make the thicket of branches before them any less intimidating. She rolls her neck until it cracks, then starts walking forward, because there's nothing else for it. "Let's save a god's life."

e. i cannot pretend that i never think of you [for ange]

She's lost track of time. The zealots didn't seem to enjoy what they found when they'd cut into her side very much, and she can still feel the blood and oil oozing out of her very slowly. If nothing else, she thinks, they know how to keep people alive enough to actually treat them like a farm. She would find it funny if there were anything to laugh about, that this is the second time this year she'd ended up strung up and in restraints waiting for something mysterious to return and do whatever it is that they want to do.

Right now, Anna feels woozy. Half-awake, really, with her head lolling and her white hair streaked with red. The zealots, from what she can remember, had left her alone for the moment to try to figure out what exactly it is she has inside her. She remembers frenzied talk about how the Tower can't accept any of this because it's not flesh, it's not real, and she can only assume that they're waiting to commune with whoever, whatever to get a real answer. Her thoughts are going in circles right now. She misses her friends, her loved ones, her family. She wishes that she weren't here. Hell, she doesn't even have her katana with her, so even if she found some way to get out of these chains holding her upright, the ones on her wrists spreading her arms wide and the ones on her legs binding them together, she wouldn't be able to do anything but tap into the teachings of Sensei Lawrence.

She laughs dry into the darkened, empty room. Someone's going to save her. Right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ange is already moving on to free Anna's other hand - though she doesn't stay quiet as she does so. Every single inch of her is humming with energy at this point, and not any good kind. It's worried, nervous - and angry, more than anything. She just wants to get Anna out of here as soon as possible, but Ange knows that it's not that easy, especially when the other is as hurt as she is.

"Well, they won't get to do anything else with you."

Her voice sounds determined about that one, at least. She'll be damned if she allows those zealots to even do as much as touch Anna now, let alone hurt her. It's already enough that Anna is bleeding now, it's already enough that Ange isn't too sure just how hurt exactly the other is. Anna seems to be capable of talking just fine - but Ange also believes that Anna would probably still be talking even if she was literally dying on the spot. She's just that type of person.

Ange moves her hand, hovering it over the wound on the other's side, though not touching it the way Anna herself did. Instead Ange closes her eyes, trying to breathe. Trying to focus her magic, thinking about the way she has healed others before. Thinking about how she wants to be able to do it right now, more desperately than anything else.

.. but of course nothing happens. Her healing magic is heavily fueled by her blood, after all, and that doesn't work in this hellish place.

She frowns. ".. I can't heal you right now."

The girl sounds guilty as she says it. Like she's blaming herself. Like she should be able to burst through the limits of this place somehow, because she has to heal Anna. She has to get the other to stop bleeding before it might get really bad.

Oh, Ange. Anna can't even put it all together just how serious this situation is, how much danger anybody who crosses this gilded witch will be in. She's just glad that she's free, or at least that both her arms are free now, and that she's not... dying. Probably. She turns her head down to see what's happening and understands that Ange can't heal her right now and that all has to be okay for the moment.

She leans her upper body forward, and the motion makes her cry out in pain louder than anything else so far. "Ange—!" There's rivulets of blood trailing down her back after only another moment, leaking through her shirt and dripping from the bottom, catching on her clothes where it doesn't splash in a puddle at her feet. The pain is so intense that she wants to cry, but she doesn't have it in her. She swears, and a flash of memory from shortly before she'd been abandoned reminds her of the four slices to her back that her body must have at least started staunching the bleeding on. Up until the moment she started moving again, of course.

"Have to go," she says, suddenly breathless. She can hear motion down the long, echoing hallways, and she's sure that Ange can hear it too. It's not fast yet; it's at the sort of steady, menacing pace where whoever's walking knows that they don't have to be anywhere in a rush. "They're coming back. You have to get out of here," she says, pressing her hands to her knees and feeling her whole body shake. Bad idea. Great. Great, cool.

Don't move, Ange wants to say as it feels like she's watching Anna fall apart right in front of her eyes. The way the other is hurting, the way the other is bleeding - even with Anna's body not exactly being your typical human body, Ange figures that there's got to be a limit somewhere of how much she can take, that there has to be a point where even Anna's body will just give out entirely.

And she has no idea how far off that point is. It seems impossibly close with the way even the faintest movements seem to destroy the other, and that realisation only further makes Ange's feelings swell up inside of her, feeling too big for her own body at this point.

And the footsteps in the hallway just keep getting closer. Slowly, but surely, steady like a metronome. Someone coming to hurt Anna further, to perhaps even take her life. By the time the footsteps stand at the door, Ange turns around at the same time as the door opens, staring right in the face of the zealot. The latter doesn't seem too bothered by finding an extra person here - if anything, all they need for this facility is more bodies, after all. Even when Ange speaks up, her voice full of emotion for once, outright venom--

"Stay away from her."

-- the zealot isn't even doing as much as blinking. He just stands there, still grinning, and then takes a step closer. Just as slowly as before in the hall, like a cat playing with its prey.

"I said stay away!" This time Ange's voice raises in volume with each word, and her hand rises as she speaks. Her hand glows with her own golden magic, and suddenly it seems like something comes over the zealot's body. It twists and bends like a pretzel, the grin disappearing as soon as he realises what's going on.

A moment later his stomach bursts open like a piñata - very much literally so, since it's not just guts that explode from the stomach, but also pieces of candy, spilling right out across the floor, some of the gore being flung against the walls.

Anna just... watches all this. She's worried, because Ange shouldn't be able to use magic, right? But that must have just meant healing, because this is absolutely some magic on display here. Some grim, gruesome magic that reminds Anna that her little sister should not be fucked with, but this is the first time she's really seen it in action. She wants to rub her eye for effect but she just ends up blinking, or maybe winking, and staying still. Like if she moves too quickly, the same magic might accidentally turn on her, free of Ange's will.

"It was small bombs," she mutters, almost too quiet to be heard, thinking back to a conversation that Ange hadn't been there for. She wants to laugh, but can't get there, whether it's from shock or pain or whatever. "Ange," she says, louder, "Can you... can you do the butterfly thing? For us?"

She'll process that she just saw her sister explode a man into condensed sugar later, once they're safe.

When Anna calls out like that, Ange turns her head back to the other, attention completely drawn away from the zealot she basically forcibly exploded only a moment ago. For a second there's still that same intensity in her eyes, and it almost seems like her magic might just turn on Anna after all, but then something about her gaze softens as Ange seems to regain some control of herself.

She breathes out, closes her eyes, tries to will herself to fall apart into a cloud of butterflies..

.. but that doesn't work either, even though that should be her own golden magic, rather than her blood magic. It should work in here - but maybe something about this place is blocking any ability to teleport yourself out of this place, or even just around the building.

It makes her frown at Anna.

"I-- I can't."

It feels like failure. What good is she if she can't even get her hurt sister out of this place? Ange chews her lower lip, openly looking distressed as she thinks.

"I know the way out, I think." If nothing changed from the last time she was here. "But we have to get you there first."

Anna looks at Ange and tries not to let the despair of it all take her over, but she's been through worse. She's lived through worse. She has to live through this, damn it, and she has to live through this because Ange has lived through worse at the hands of the zealots. She moves again, against her sister's advice, and feels the pain tear through her body.

(No, A2's body might not operate exactly the same way as a human one, but Anna's metal skin has been as easy to pierce as anything else, and she bleeds when pricked, and she is far from unstoppable. She wants to scream. She doesn't.)

"I can do it," she says, breathless, her eyes screwed shut. She lurches forward, trying to keep her back as immobile as possible, and it doesn't really work. There's an explosion of air from her lungs coming out through her open mouth, and she flicks spittle on the ground, and she tries so hard to keep herself silent so she doesn't have to see Ange detonate someone else. So she doesn't have to force Ange to kill again.

"Just need something to wrap around it," she says, labored, trying to think of an answer. The slashes on her back don't feel very big, and they're where most of the pain is coming from. They're shielded from the elements now because her clothing is a big loose bandage, but her mind just focuses on the bandage part instead of anything else. "Shirt's ruined." And in fact, the white tee is already turning red to the point that everyone's favorite video game developer is barely even recognizable. "Use it."

There's other circumstances where Ange would have plenty of protests about this sort of idea.

But when it looks like her sister is bleeding out right in front of her, every single one of them dies right on her tongue before they can even leave her mouth. Instead she just silently follows the other's guidance, trying to carefully get the shirt off Anna without hurting the other even further, wincing when she has to try and carefully pull it off the wound where the blood is weighing it down, making it stick to the skin underneath.

Ange manages, though. She stays quiet too, almost eerily so - and perhaps even more so after what she did to the zealot only a moment ago. There's a look in Ange's eyes that makes it seem like her brain is working overtime inside of her head, behind that silent expression, even as she moves to tear the shirt and wrap it around Anna's chest so it covers the wound better, turning it into a tiny top before tying it off at the ends.

At first it seems like she might not talk even then, but even though she lingers in Anna's personal space rather than fully backing off yet - protectively so - Ange does finally seem to manage to find words again.

"Is this okay?" She swallows, and then adds: "All I need you to do is walk."

Even though it feels like so much to ask from Anna in her current state. She looks so hurt, and every reminder of that fact feels like a hammer is being taken straight to Ange's heart, chipping further and further away at it.

"I'll do everything else. I'll take care of it all. Anna, I'll-- I'll tear this whole place down for you."

Ange's tone dips at that last part.

She sounds entirely serious about it.

Under normal circumstances, this should frighten her.

She shouldn't be recognizing the parts of herself that made Ange afraid manifesting within Ange right now. But when she simply says it like that, it's hard for Anna to ignore it. There's dread in her gut but there's too much blood loss, too much pain for her to do anything about it. She takes a couple steps forward, slow and cautious. The makeshift bandage around her chest is keeping the wounds as closed as they'll get, and though it still hurts, she's not going to collapse in a heap or anything. Ange is good at this, she thinks in the moment, before her little sister makes that threat.

"Like hell you are," she says, weak yet still bitter like a comforting cup of tea that someone screwed up on during every step of the process. "We know what happens when we try to do that." She coughs, not roughly, and she glares daggers at her little sister, but then there's another pulse of pain through her body and she realizes that the glare is as much resistance as she'll be able to give to the idea. (And that, if Ange happened to turn any of that magic on her, she should count herself lucky to still be able to glare.)

"Let's just get out of here safe. Okay?"

"And then what?!"

This isn't the right moment for this. But Ange can't help it. It's like there's something inside of her that's stronger than her, almost. A kind of anger she hasn't felt in a long time, though it may have been simmering just below the surface, waiting for a spark to ignite it.

If Ruby hadn't gotten stuck in this place only a few days ago, then maybe it wouldn't have started to boil and then explode - but with Anna on top of it now, two of the most important people to her having been dragged to this place again--

It's too much.

"We get out of here, and then wait for it to happen all over again?! For this-- this stupid place to hurt someone else I love?!" Ange shakes her head, red hair flying around wildly as she does. "I'm sick of that! I'm sick of just taking this place's crap!"

"And what the hell else is there?"

She wants to shout it back, but it's only going to attract more attention, and she doesn't have the energy for it. She can't force herself not to bleed out and have a heated argument right now, but she doesn't know how else to handle this.

"I'm sick of the world just happening at me, too, Ange. I've lived through this feeling of not being able to control anything three times now. And every single time, I tried to take it back, and everyone around me paid for it, okay?" She doesn't think she needs to explain, which is for the best right now. "You just turned that guy into a dude piñata and I never even thought you could do that kind of thing. What's next? What are you doing next if it keeps going?"

She tries to stare at Ange, but she's having such a hard time keeping upright, keeping the emotions on her face and directed towards the right place. "I mean, you can't be planning to kill all of them."

At least it's not like Ange is completely off the rails here. And more than anything - if there's anything that could make Ange actually listen, it's the people she cares about.

It's why she doesn't just straight up ignore what Anna is saying here. Ange stops rambling for a moment, and even though she doesn't quite visibly calm down yet, she does at least look over at the other. Her gaze slips down to the area where Anna is obviously still wounded, even with the makeshift-shirt-bandage now over it, but she quickly raises her gaze back to the other's face before the anger can wash over her and set her off all over again.

It's then that she speaks up again, after that last thing Anna says.

"Why not?"

.. maybe not the answer Anna was hoping for here, since those two simple words combined with the way Ange looks right now seem to imply that she's very much planning on that, if that's what it takes. She could do it, right? She's the golden witch, the endless witch, what do these zealots have on her?

But she doesn't run off to do exactly that. Instead she still stands here with Anna, waiting to hear her sister's answer. Like it means something to her - like it matters, despite what Ange really wants to do right now, something in her blood calling for it.

And now, Anna is frightened. This is her little sister saying that she'll slaughter an entire building full of people, and from the looks of it, it's not even she would have any problems with. It's a fact of her life right now, and that means that Anna—the perpetual older sister, the girl who protects others, it means that that girl has to stop Ange.

"Can you live with that on your soul?" she asks gravely. Yuri would be disappointed in her, but he returned to the sea eight months ago and she can't define her morals by what other people would think is cool. "I know what they've done. I know what they're going to keep doing. But they're not going to come back like we do if you kill them," she says, unsure if that's true.

She presses her palm against her side as though she's somehow forgotten the circumstances in which they find themselves; the pain keeps her sharp. "If you kill all of these people, you'll have to live with it for the rest of your life. And we don't know who their leader is, so either a new faction of them moves in, or you paint a giant fucking target on your back. If they can already bring us here without us knowing, how hard do you think it'll be for someone way higher up the chain to find you?"

She's grimacing, and there's a not small part of her that expects she won't be getting through. But she doesn't want to let Ange handle this on her own. They just need to escape and deal with this as a fact of life when the days get shorter. She can't let her sister create her own Rokkenjima.

Most of these arguments don't really work on Ange in her current state - especially not the moral ones. Sure, these may just be people, and they may die permanently, but it's not like that idea has really stopped Ange before. It's not like she's the type to murder anyone who's innocent, but these zealots.. they're so far from that.

So that's not what stops her. It's the last part that she finally seems to think about. Ange doesn't mind being in danger, a part of her just wants to say bring it, but she glances down at the ring on her finger and realises that there's more at play here than just her. Isn't that the entire reason she's so pissed off in the first place, because this place keeps hurting people?

"I have to draw a line here," she says to Anna. Or rather than saying, it's explaining, it's-- almost pleading, especially with the look visible in Ange's eyes as she looks at the other. She can see the other's current state, and realises they don't have time, but she feels like she has to convince Anna of this.

They're sisters. She'll see, right? She'll get it, won't she?

"They hurt you. They hurt Ruby." At least it's not just anger in her voice as she speaks now. Maybe it's a sign that Ange is coming down a little from what came over her - but only a little, she's still on a precarious balance here. Still, there's some pain in her voice too now. "How is that okay? Do I just accept that? Give them the okay to do it all over again..?"

"I know," she says, quickly, because she doesn't trust what could happen if there's too much silence between them right now. "I know what they did. And once you start, these people wouldn't stop you." That's the thing about this. Anna knows for a fact that Ange would not remotely be a match for these zealots. That if she lets Ange go out and do what she wants to do, Ange will win. "And what happens then? What happens if you go on a bloody rampage through this whole place and you come back out on the other end and you're not done?"

She doesn't know what could happen next, but of the two of them, Anna's the only one (to her knowledge) who willingly broke through the bounds of humanity and embraced beasthood. She's still in pain, emotional and physical now, and she's hobbled over to a wall to try to get some support from leaning against it. "Do you know what it feels like to lose yourself to that? When the only thing you can think of is shedding more blood?" Her chest sinks as she breathes out, some of the tension only appearing to fall from her shoulders while she does it.

"I got lucky that John killed me when he did." She stares past Ange, and her voice deadens. "When I killed Falco, I didn't feel anything towards him. If John hadn't killed me, I would have kept going. Everyone would have died, and I wouldn't have felt a single fucking thing."

Ange opens her mouth.

She wants to say that it won't be like that this time. That she's in control of herself. (She feels very much in control of herself right now, after all, when she knows that her rage is only driven by protectiveness, by an active sense that she has to keep Anna safe.)

But Ange realises the insult in that, no matter how accidental it is. Saying that it won't be like this here implies that it's Anna's own fault for losing control last time around, and the very thought of implying that is enough to kill any protest, Ange's heart still too strong to think of even accidentally hurting someone so important to her.

She steps over, closer towards Anna. Ange makes sure to stand on the side that isn't as badly wounded, and then grabs the other's arm, carefully placing it over Ange's own shoulders so Anna can lean on her.

".. fine."

Something about her tone sounds like a little kid who gives in to something that's ultimately good for them, but that they really don't want to do.

Like going to the dentist.

"I won't leave your side. I'll get you out of here. But if any of these people end up in our path, trying to stop us-- then I won't stop myself when it comes to those specific people." That's a fair compromise, right? It's not like they're going to get out there without doing anything in that case. A little bit of practical murder is okay, right.

It shouldn't be this difficult to convince someone to not commit a whole lot of murders. But she accepts this, with her body draped over Ange, with Ange giving what is honestly a very strong compromise on the policy of killing people. She can't argue with results.

"Thanks," she says, and it sounds like she means it even if she also sounds very weary about the whole thing. "If there's no other option, yes. Yeah." Not even Anna is stupid enough to think that peace is the only option, and she has no issues with raising weapons in defense.

"I can't do a lot to protect you like this, but I can at least protect your conscience." That sounds stupid, but she doesn't care. She's met Beatrice, and she does not want to see a second Beatrice rise. "You can kick my ass for it once we're safe. Let's just try to get out of here already." There's a conspicuous pause as her hand stops dangling to brush hair from her face. "But I really hope the fucker who stole my eyepatch decides to pick a fight."

Oh, Anna.

Ange is already moving, making sure to not go too quickly or be too wild about it when she knows Anna is still really hurt, but the other definitely is saying the wrong sort of thing in (half?)-jest here. It doesn't quite stop the other girl in her tracks, since she's still moving and carefully taking Anna along the hallways of this place, knowing that she'll just have to keep guiding the other towards the stairs, going further and further up--

But she does speak up with something Anna probably doesn't want to hear. Something Ange herself ought to be aware of too, but she's still riled up, the adrenaline still thick underneath her skin, no matter the compromise she's making here.

"Should I go look for it once I get you out of here?"

L-Look, clearly that's a valid reason to go tearing through this place, right? Her sister needs her eyepatch!

Anna's being just as careful with her own steps, but she doesn't know how seriously she should be taking what Ange is saying. It was sort of a joke, that veiled threat at one of the zealots, but it sort of wasn't. And she should know by now that if she gives Ange an inch, she's more than willing to take as many red, red miles as she needs.

"I'll just get another one," she lies. She'd prefer not to; it's the last memory she has of someone else she's left behind, and she's running lower and lower on those lately, too. "Let's just get out of here and I'll figure out the rest. Okay?"

She wants to get Ange out of here, too; she's worried that it's bad for her. That it's making it easier for her to fall to corruption. It's probably not just this place, she idly thinks, but maybe it is.

She continues to walk, like she's listening to what her big sister is telling her here, rather than turning around and running right back to where she found Anna to try and find that eyepatch, or try to interrogate some of the zealots as to where it is.

But there's a hint of reluctance in her steps. Not enough to slow her down, since she knows she has to get Anna out of here as quickly as possible with the state the other is in, but it shows in the way Ange occasionally glances over her shoulder backwards, rather than constantly looking ahead of them.

Anna is entirely right in her assessment. That this place isn't good for Ange, since every moment where Anna is in danger fuels her paranoia and her desire to violently keep her safe, and also that her brain will gladly take just about any excuse now to go tearing through this place.

Even if Anna is trying so hard to keep her pacified. It's the only thing keeping Ange from running back right now.

"I want to help you figure it out," she protests, though it's a protest in verbal terms only. She's still moving forward, helping Anna up the stairs to the next level. That's where the exit was last time around, Ange remembers. Moving up, up, up, until you can't go any further. "You're hurt." She pauses, and then with the way her brain works, it reminds her enough for her to add out loud: "They hurt you."

Apparently she can't let that go quite yet.

"You shouldn't have to figure everything out by yourself. I want to-- help you. Keep you safe." There's definitely something in the way she speaks too that shows Ange is struggling.

Although struggling is better than just straight up giving into the urge without putting up any resistance, right.

Ah. Up. Well, it's a tower. That makes sense. (Ha, she thinks. Of course all of this ties back to the Tower. How's she gonna help Never Mind find that mushroom like this?) But she can still handle stairs as long as they're careful about it. Anna's quiet, quieter than she probably should be; she has some thoughts that are growing clearer, though.

The thoughts she doesn't say, the sharp ones with edges and corners and spikes, go a little like: I'm trying to keep you safe. Don't worry about me. You have a wife to get back to but Kainé will get over me. They never part her lips, no matter how easy it would be. They're on a thin edge, and she doesn't have to open her mouth much to let them pierce through.

"I'll heal," is what she does say, dismissive and almost emotionless. "I've lived through worse," she chases it with, like she would ever let that excuse fly with anyone else. "I just want both of us to get out of here without any more blood on either of our hands." She's had too much time to think about that lately. "Then we can get home, and we can get showers, and I can come over and make sure you're recovering."

It isn't often that she puts it all on display like this. Her own stubbornness, her own insistence that she doesn't need help and that she can get by without being taken care of. It's stupid, and part of her knows it, but a louder part just wants everyone else to be fine and when that's sorted out, she can finally focus on herself. She isn't a person with needs, really. She's someone who helps others. She'll be fine.

"I'm not the one who's hurt!" Ange points out, the emotion in her voice rising - though it's not with anger.

Not anger directed towards Anna, anyway. The part that's aimed at the other walking with her, Ange making sure to keep a close eye on both the other - especially when they have to climb the stairs up - and on the path ahead of them, wanting to make sure there's nothing in their way.. that part is just worry. Worry that's being expressed a little more obviously than Ange would usually ever allow it to.

Maybe Anna has a point, in that sense. Ange may not have to recover physically, but she definitely seems off. Her emotions seem so all over the place in a way they're usually not, and her reaction only solidifies that fact.

"I don't have to recover from anything. I just want you to be okay. What's more important than your life..?"

(At least Ange doesn't necessarily mean it in a sense that her life is less important than Anna's.

.. though she does mean it in a sense that Anna's life is so much more important than the life of every single zealot in this godforsaken place, which is maybe better, but still not ideal if Anna doesn't want blood on anyone's hands here.)

It's a good thing the hallway ahead of them, over to the next set of stairs, is clear for now.

Anna can read it just fine, fortunately. She knows that Ange isn't putting her own life below Anna's—probably because they both know that neither of them would ever let the other get away with it. Mutually assured destruction. She looks up, ahead of them, taken by a small bout of what feels like vertigo. The way ahead is clear, she can see, once her vision clears and her head stops feeling like it's going to fall off her neck and roll across the floor.

"At least I know you won't turn me into a candygram," she says before she can stop herself. If she winces at the right time, maybe she can garner enough sympathy to ask for Ange to look past her little indiscretions.

"You're not hurt in a way anyone can see right now," she says instead. That's not an indiscretion. "But you're hurt, too. My little sister doesn't jump to murder like this on her own." Which is the point of all of it, Anna guesses; she looks over. "If you think—"

She hears something. Footsteps, one set. Heavy and urgent, traipsing down the stairs practically two at a time. Her head snaps to attention as quickly as it can, and she pushes herself off Ange to try to assume some sort of aggressive stance. Whoever this is—she can't recognize the zealot and doubts she ever really could, but whoever it is is clutching a small, bloody piece of fabric in their fist as they round the corner and make this hallway suddenly un-empty.

"You fucking son of a bitch," mutters Anna weakly, underneath the zealot's quickening footsteps as the distance closes.

Everything is easily forgotten at this sight. The candygram comment - though Ange would have allowed Anna of all people to get away with that in the first place, really - and the comment on Ange's own state right now completely vanish, like snow melting under a brightly burning sun.

It's like everything fades. At least Anna still exists in the periphery, but everything else disappears - other than Ange, and the zealot moving down the stairs, clutching the one thing they were looking for here.

She steps forward, especially since Anna was already making an attempt to stand by herself without leaning on Ange in the first place. It's tempting to just jump the zealot, but Ange at least isn't doing that, like Anna's words do have some influence on her, even though a voice in her head tells her how much more easy this could be if she just let go.

"Give that back," she just says. The words are relatively calm, but it's like the surface of a frozen lake thinly covered with ice, threatening to drown anything that steps on it.

Maybe it's since Ange already knows. Of course she can act like she isn't going to be way too intense about this, because there's no way the zealot is going to peacefully cooperate with them in the first place, and then she'll have a reason. And she'll have listened to Anna at the same time, r-right? W-Win-win situation?

(Not like she isn't drawing the zealot's attention towards them on purpose, just itching for it--)

"Get back on your hooks!" she hears the zealot shout in an unrecognizable voice, and one she doesn't have the presence of mind to bother committing to memory. And weakly, she shouts back, "Fuck you!"

A bleeding cough chases the vitriol from her mouth, and when her coughing fit is finished, she wipes her mouth clean of a thin trail of blood at the corner with her mechanical arm. Maybe she doesn't have the presence of mind to remember the present because she's focused so clearly on her own past right now. This was a gift from one of the friends who had tried her hardest to reintroduce her to the world after Anna had lost her eye. One of her more consistent friends, even if at first she'd only recognized Penelope for her extremely buff and hot girlfriend. Someone who cared in ways that Anna never felt like she fully appreciated. Losing this eyepatch is tantamount to losing Pen, and she will never, ever be able to afford that. Not then, not now. Even the smallest things still add up into the sum of a thousand lives that is Anna.

"You have one chance to drop the eyepatch and turn the fuck around," she warns, but she can already see that the zealot is still approaching, and that her threats aren't going to do anything. With fire in her chest and clenched teeth, red lines filling the cracks between them, she tells Ange, "Do it. I don't care."

That permission is all she needs.

After all, Ange wasn't holding back here for her own sake. It was purely for Anna's, not wanting to lose favour with someone so important to her. But if Anna is telling her that she can do it - then who would she be not to? She's got her sister's permission.

And with all the resentment towards these zealots that has been building up within her after seeing Anna this hurt, having to try and limp out of this building, it all comes hurled out at once. Ange raises her hand, glowing with golden magic, the blood pollution in this place starting to return even more of her powers to her, feeling them practically boiling in her veins.

She knows exactly what she wants to do. And after envisioning it in her mind, it slowly starts taking shape in reality - huge tools apparently in the air, some not unlike the ones the zealots use themselves. They grip at the zealot, starting to tear chunks off them before discarding the flesh and hair and limbs onto the ground haphazardly and returning for more. An eye for an eye, one may say, or a tortrous death in this slaughterhouse for a tortrous death in this slaughterhouse.

(Or maybe it's just something very familiar, a thing Ange's own resentment has never fully gotten over--)

The tools continue even as the zealot screams in agony, moving fast, until the figure is reduced to little more than a pile of minced meat on the ground of the sleeper farm.

Ange, having been silent the entire time throughout it, steps over towards the pile to fish Anna's eyepatch out of it, looking down at the object.

It's only then that a hint of emotion appears on her face - something akin to disappointment, perhaps even a bit of guilt. ".. Sorry, I got it dirty."

Like that's the most important thing here in the face of what just happened.

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hauntedsavior - 2023-01-01 23:20 (UTC) - Expand

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entreats - 2023-01-03 19:37 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

fall for me from reality [open]

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cw: more gross gore than the already existing levels

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cw: gore, death

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